First about Anthony Watts: He has my unreserved admiration for his long and unique work on surface stations in USA, revelling their poor locations, quality etc. This is exceptionally good work from a private citizen when the government and “scientific” organisations failed to do their work.

And then his dedicated work on his blog (http://wattsupwiththat.com/) to expose the flawed “science” behind the Global Warming Hysteria. All this work has made his blog, rightfully so, one of the must influential ones. This is extraordinary work from a private citizen. I stand in salute for that.

But, as I said, he has crossed a line that should not be crossed with the above post.

As a former journalist and working in the government, I am deeply troubled. I posted a comment to his post (see at the end of this post), but I like to explain in more detail why I am so troubled by his post.

What shines through is the absolute naiveté, especially the political naiveté. It’s incredulous. And dangerous.

So let’s first recapitulate which persons/groups are behind the greatest scientific/political scandal in modern time – The Global Warming Hysteria:

So called “scientists” (Big science), the political elites, governments, EU, UN, NGO: s (all goes under Big Government and Global Big Government), the mainstream media (Old Big Media), Big Companies (including ironically Big Oil). Many of them have been at it for nearly 30-40 years.

In sum the establishment.

They don’t care about the truth and give no quarters to anybody. Especially if people are perceived as a threat. These people and groups will never give up their power or privileges voluntarily, or because they are “nice”. And they will fight tooth and nail to keep it.

So it is this “charming lot” we are up against.

There are two parts to this.

First:

The first part is the extensive speculations, going through categories of persons that could have done it, and tips on who is behind the leak etc.

As I said in my comment to his post:

“Why on earth should you in any shape or form abet them in trying to catch the person/persons behind the leak?”

This is not your job, Anthony. The governments, with ALL their disposable resources; from police via tax authorities to different intelligence agencies and special ops; HAVE ALL the resources in the world to find this person/persons. If they so chose.

As a journalist, the first rule is to protect your sources. And especially you don’t try and go and expose them through lengthy examinations and discussion about who they can be.

To give you an analogue with one of the most famous of them all “Deep throat”. This exposed the Nixon administration, including the Watergate scandal.

Imagine if Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had written lengthy articles about who the source could be, which persons actually had access to that kind of information, which department etc he or she could come from.

How many new sources do you think they would get? – None. Nada. Zilch. Zero. They would be the pariah of investigative journalism. And for a very good reason too.

Her you have a very reliable source with data that can be controlled and verified. And you want to find out who it is. Thereby risking that person/persons untold “unpleasantness”. Just by speculating.

And Anthony, why do you think FOIA after two years of silence published the WHOLE email file this time, even if you could only access 5000 of them? The rest covered by high encryption and a very long pass phrase?

Because this is his or her insurance against the resources the state can put against them.

Remember that FOIA was very naïve to in the beginning. He/she gave it first to the mainstream media (including laughingly enough BBC). Which of course refused to do anything.

It was only after that it was “leaked”. But however FOIA is, he/she have quickly learned the hard political lessons.

Very telling is the absent from the leaked emails of ANY regarding contacts between the so called “scientists” and politicians or person high up in various administrations/agencies etc.

Why, because I am quite sure that they are there among the rest of the 250 000 emails behind that encryption. So if the state or politicians gets “to close” FOIA will release the pass phrase which will reveal everything in the hidden emails.

That alone should give you pass for thought. And stop this helping to find the person/persons behind the leak.

Second:

So let’s again recapitulate which “charming lot” are behind the greatest scientific/political scandal in modern time:

So called “scientists” (Big science), the political elites, governments, EU, UN, NGO: s (all goes under Big Government and Global Big Government), the mainstream media (Old Big media), Big companies (including ironically Big Oil). Many of the have been at it for nearly 30-40 years.

In sum the establishment.

They don’t care about the truth and give no quarters to anybody. Especially if people are perceived as a threat. These people and groups will never give up their power or privileges voluntarily, or because they are “nice”. And they will fight tooth and nail to keep it.

So it is this “prime example of truthful and nice people” we are up against.

And what does Anthony do?

He writes an email to one of the chief architects behind the Global Warming Hysteria Phil Jones (CRU)and Journal of Geophysical Research;and kindly informs them that he has discovered some security holes.

And admonishes that they “should immediately change all passwords access for these CRU members and I would advise against allowing transmission of live links such as the one above in the future. JGR might also consider a more secure method of manuscript sharing for review.”

Let me se if I get this right:

Anthony writes to Phil Jones, a guy who literally hates him and has done everything possible to smear and stop him, and tells him about security problems on their systems. And how to stop them so there can be no leaks in the future?

HUUHHH??????

Leaks like Climate gate 1 and 2, which showed in black and white these “scientist”, politicians and “journalists” to be lying, breaking the law,“adjusting” and manipulating data to fit their agenda, stopping ANY dissent and suppressing any person or paper that dared to question them.

Out of respect for Anthony I will not make some very tempting analogies here.

You have accomplished what the Global Warming Hysterics in their wettest dream didn’t dare to dream.

How sad. And what a shame.

I can only conclude by saying that Anthony, you have crossed a line, and even if you do not understand it yourself, you have become Colonel Nicholson (se below).

Here is my comment to his post published 4.24 am today:

______________________________________

Anthony, have you lost it?

Why on earth should you in any shape or form abet them in trying to catch the person/persons behind the leak? As some have pointed out in their comments.

And Charles.U.Farleys comments are spot on

“In fact if the roles were reversed i think theyd have used any foothold, any loophole to ensure they brought you down rather than simply seek the truth. Personally i dont think its wise to assist them in any way shape or form as its simply helping them to continue unabated.

After all, this is a global war theyre involved in, a war based on lies and disinformation, of treachery and vilification of anyone not supporting “the cause”, and comfort shouldnt be given to enemies of freedom, especuially ones who stoop so low as these.”

Sadly, you very much remind me of commander, Colonel Nicholson played by Alec Guinness in the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

The prisoners (British soldiers) are working as little as possible and sabotaging whatever they can at the construction of a bridge.

When Nicholson and his officers are released, he conducts an inspection of the bridge and is shocked by what he finds. Against the protests of some of his officers, he orders Captain Reeves and Major Hughes to design and build a proper bridge, despite its military value to the Japanese, for the sake of his men’s morale. The Japanese engineers had chosen a poor site, so the original construction is abandoned and a new bridge is begun 400 yards downstream.

Nicholson drives his men, even volunteering to have them work harder to complete the bridge on time

The commandos who where parachute in, plant explosives to destroy the bridge and a train carrying Japanese soldiers and important dignitaries is scheduled to be the first to use the bridge the following morning

Making a final inspection, Nicholson spots the wire and brings it to Japanese commander attention. As the train is heard approaching, the two hurry down to the riverbank to investigate. Joyce, hiding with the detonator, breaks cover and stabs Saito to death; Nicholson yells for help, while attempting to stop Joyce from reaching the detonator. Joyce is killed by Japanese fire. Shears swims across the river, but is shot just before he reaches Nicholson.

Recognising the dying Shears, Nicholson exclaims, ”What have I done?”

I think it sums it up quiet well.

Sophia

__________________________________________________________

UPDATE

Well my post made some stir. As it should because it concerns some important principles.

First, let me say that I find it depressing that so few people really understands the need to protect the sources. And doesn’t understand that mindless speculations are very dangerous in this regard

Second, what shines through, still, in the debate is the absolute naiveté, especially the political naiveté. It’s incredulous. And very dangerous.

This is NOT some tea party where you discus things friendly over biscuits and cake. And have a wee argument.

This is about Power and Real Politics. And the persons behind the Global Warming Hysteria have been playing it for a long time. And very successfully so.

Until people understand this, that it always has been a political agenda, the Global Warming Hysterics will have the upper hand. It has nothing to do with science, facts or saving the environment or the Earth.

Here are some who publicly have commented and linked to my post about Anthony Watts:

Why on earth would be do that when the Climategate releases have been so helpful to skeptics? It appears to be out of some misguided sense of honour but I suspect that the real motive is that he is tired of being reviled by the climate establishment and is hungry for some praise from them: Deeply regrettable on many levels.

A Swedish blogger who herself finds great holes in the reporting of climate statistics is particilarly upset because she knows how unprincipled and dishonest the climate establishment is. She sees what Watts has done as akin to aiding and abetting criminals in their crime.

”Anthony wrights to Phil Jones, a guy who literarily hates him and has done everything possible to smear and stop him, and tells him about security problems on their systems. And how to stop them so there can be no leeks in the future?
HUUHHH??????”

“A schism in the ranks of global warming skeptics may ensue due to another gaffe by the world’s most popular science website, WattsUpWithThat. WUWT blogger, Anthony Watts has unashamedly boasted to have tipped off Climategate fraudster, Professor Phil Jones, about a potentially critical further security leak on university Internet servers.”

”You got that? It was his “duty,”says Watts, to help FOIA-denying fraudster Jones (the data-destroyer who unlawfully obstructed other researchers from trying to independently verify CRU climate calculations) to hide even more evidence. With such principled ‘friends’ like Watts does Steve McIntyre need any enemies?

Respected Aussie skeptic, Dr John Ray was so stunned by the Watts email that he penned ‘Controversial action by Anthony Watts’ (December 07, 2011) in response. Dr. Ray bemoans, “Watts has been assisting prominent Warmists to avoid any further releases of their emails. He is trying to disable any Climategate III.” Then Watts appeared to give the finger to Ray and fellow skeptics by declaring, “I opted on the side of doing what I felt was the right course of action. If that upsets a few people, so be it.”

Watts: Not the First Fool to Aid Professor Jones

When roundly condemned by more savvy commenters on his blog Watts responded on December 6, 2011 at 10:38 am:

“I was told in the reply from Phil Jones and from AGU that others had also been made aware of it, so I wasn’t the first.”

This Watts statement gives the game away: by declaring he was not aware that others had already tipped off Jones and in offering no further justification for his tactically inept action, he is merely conceding, “it wasn’t me who did it!”

As such the image of a snivelling schoolboy caught misbehaving springs to mind. Above all else, this ill-advised gaffe by Watts proves, if proof were needed, that Watts acted in haste and probably without consulting others. As such it shows once again that “Our Side” are a rag-tag bunch of renegades and not the “well-funded and well-organized” team that the narrative of Gore, Hansen, Mann, et al. would have the public believe.

I relate entirely to Dr. Ray and others who are now questioning why Watts would act to help the dastardly Phil Jones to block a potentially excellent source of information for skeptics. Ray speculates that Watts’s apoplexy appears to be triggered by some ”misguided sense of honor.” I can’t see any other logical reason so that may be true.

Ray suspects that an underlying motive is that Watts has become “tired of being reviled by the climate establishment and is hungry for some praise from them: Deeply regrettable on many levels.”

Wider International Frustrations Due to Watts

Ray’s frustrations are echoed by a Swedish blogger (read her comments HERE) similarly perplexed that Watts, a champion of exposing flaws in the ground level global thermometer readings, should want to sink to “aiding and abetting criminals in their crime.”

Watts just doesn’t seem to have the broader expertize to join the dots on this. In legal parlance, both the mens rea and actus reas were there for any jury to convict Jones of such crimes. Watts doesn’t comprehend that the original criminal charge against Jones under the FOIA was not pursued merely because of a tecnicality – the short six-month time limit had already expired. “

However, only the self-serving elite in the Crown Prosecution Service, police and UK Government refuse to see that Jones may still be prosecuted for his offenses as per the Fraud Act 2006 ( see Ch. 35. Fraud. ‘1 Fraud. 2 Fraud by false representation. 3 Fraud by failing to disclose information’) where no such time limit gets Jones off the hook.Watts, by being so amenable to Jones, is bolstering the edifice of climate criminality.

Watts just doesn’t get it – these authorities to which Jones is but a mere stooge – are not going to suddenly acquire the principles they manifestly lack and actually start playing by the rules. My own view is thatWattsacted hastily and foolishly to tip off fraudster Jones – such a gaffe gains us nothing and may cost us valuable new information. Scum like Jones do not deserve a helping hand because he and his governmental handlers can’t win a fair fight.”

“But why should Watts want to help scum like Jones? Professor Jones is a man patently caught out engaging in criminal misconduct expressing his intent in emails to colleagues and urging them to join him in unlawfully defying Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. “

“Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the ”scientists” at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith Briffa – all your favourite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of emails exaggerating the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as a strong as they’d like it to be.

In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism. This, it seems, is what motivated the whistleblower ‘FOIA 2011’ (or ”thief”, as the usual suspects at RealClimate will no doubt prefer to tar him or her) to go public.”

“FOIA 2011 is right, of course. If you’re going to bomb the global economy back to the dark ages with environmental tax and regulation, if you’re going to favour costly, landscape-blighting, inefficient renewables over real, abundant, relatively cheap energy that works like shale gas and oil,if you’re going to cause food riots and starvation in the developing world by giving over farmland (and rainforests) to biofuel production, then at the very leastyou it owe to the world to base your policies on sound, transparent, evidence-based science rather than on the politicised, disingenuous junk churned out by the charlatans at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”

” Can’t see what the fuss is about, meself … just another 5,000 e-mails showing the climate science ”community” committing collective suicide – nothing a few ”independent” scientific inquiries and a BBC documentary can’t fix … hide the recline, so to speak.”

“The emails appear to be genuine, but this has yet to be confirmed by theUniversityofEast Anglia. One of the emailers, the climate scientist Prof Michael Mann, has confirmed that he believes they are his messages.”

Now the new emails are searchable in a database. It took less than a day through volunteer work by independent bloggers. That’s why the political elite, politicians, the mainstream media (old media) and so called scientists; in the end don’t have a change to hide the truth. And to continue to drive their political agenda and manipulations even if they have all the money in the world.

Which they have, it is we, the taxpayers that is forced to finance this giant scam. And it is we, the common people that have to pay two/three times for the “pleasure” of watching our politicians reducing our living standard back to the Stone Age.

They also have the backing of the big corporations, including ironically BIG Oil.

That’s why this fight for truth, real data and real science, and freedom is taking so long. They are not going to voluntarily give up all this power and money.

”Climategate 2.0 – the gift that goes on giving. And you know how good it is from the reaction of the trolls. They’re going mental. On the one hand they’d like to insist it’s a non-story. On the other hand, the more shrilly they shriek it’s a non-story the more evident it becomes just what a great story it is.

Here’s an amusing analysis of the warmist trolls’ various lines of defence, which I picked up from the comments at Watts Up With That: (I wd give a hat tip except I’ve gone and lost the bit: if anyone can re-find it for me let me know)

Stage 1: they aren’t real emails

Stage 2: they are real emails but they aren’t in context

Stage 3: they are in context, but that’s how scientists work

Stage 4: ok, this isn’t really science, but you guys stole the emails!

I have written many, many posts in this blog about the intimidation of people and blatant censoring of facts done in the name of ”science” and Global Warming Hysteria. And that the Global Waming Hysteria has nothing to do with saving the Earth or the environment. It has always been a political agenda.

I have written extensible (over 120 of posts) about the scam called Cap and Trade, – the Biggest Heist in History- where BOTH BUYER AND SELLER BENEFITS FROM CHEATING. And we, as taxpayers and consumers pay the prize. It’s an open invitation to fraud and manipulation.

And recognize it for what it is – A GIANT FINANCIAL SCAMthat puts all the burden on the common people and does nothing whatsoever for the environment.

The European model is a carnival of corruption, profiteering, speculation and multi-billion-dollar fraud. It’s done nothing to improve the environment while handing undeserved profits to big business and driving up the cost of energy to consumers.

What they are really advocating is huge price increases in the cost of energy, meaning the cost of everything.

“Since 1988, when the greatest scare the world has seen got under way,hundreds of billions of pounds have been poured into academic research projects designed not to test the CO2 warming thesis but to take it as a given fact, and to use computer models to make its impacts seem as scary as possible.

The new global ”carbon trading” market, already worth $126 billion a year, could soon be worth trillions.Governments, including our own, are calling for hundreds of billions more to be chucked into absurd ”carbon-saving” energy schemes, with the cost to be met by all of us in soaring taxes and energy bills.

With all this mighty army of gullible politicians, dutiful officials, busy carbon traders, eager ”renewables” developers and compliant, funding-hungry academics standing to benefit from the greatest perversion of the principles of true science the world has ever seen, who are we to protest that their emperor has no clothes? (How apt that that fairy tale should have been written in Copenhagen.)

Let all that fluffy white ”global warming” continue to fall from the skies, while people shiver in homes that, increasingly, they will find they can no longer afford to heat. We have called into being a true Frankenstein’s monster.It will take a mighty long time to cut it down to size.”

“It has always baffled me that all the good scientists out there mostly in silence allow the shenanigans and charlatans of there craft to destroy the creditability of science as a whole.

A very good description in today’s The Australian of the sad state of the so called “science” behind the Global Warming Hysteria. And the medias and politicians roll in spreading this gospel.

And the censorship and intimidation from the press, media, politicians and fellow “scientists” of everyone who has opposed this hysteria.

I all along have said that this Global Warming Hysteria has nothing to do with science, facts, or saving the environment. It’s all a political agenda. An anti human, anti development and anti freedom agenda. They also hate the capitalistic system for obvious reasons.”

”Of course, the root of this whole thing is money,” Spann said. ”And, there is a vast amount of wealth being generated by this whole issue. And I always recommend to folks – if anyone speaks on the subject, get a disclosure and find out their financial interests in it.”

He pointed to former Vice President Al Gore as an example of how money behind climate change and global warming alarmism can perpetuate a theory that shouldn’t warrant as much merit otherwise.

”I’m not a politician, don’t understand it – I honestly don’t know,” Spann said. ”But, I will tell you that there’s a lot of people who have gotten very, very wealthy – filthy rich off this subject. I think former Vice President [Al Gore] collects a minimum of $200,000 per speech on this and all of this money – it can corrupt anybody, and I just think it’s all about money.”

Well, finally, more and more real scientists are revolting against the corruption and politicization of science. The latest example is Harold Lewis, Emeritus Professor of Physics.

“What has this to do with APS? In 2007 the APS Council adopted a Statement on global warming (also reproduced at the tinyurl site mentioned above) that was based largely on the scientific work that is now revealed to have been corrupted. (The principals in this escapade have not denied what they did, but have sought to dismiss it by saying that it is normal practice among scientists. You know and we know that that is simply untrue. Physicists are not expected to cheat.)”

“None of us would use corrupted science in our own work, nor would we sign off on a thesis by a student who did so. This is not only a matter of science, it is a matter of integrity, and the integrity of the APS is now at stake.”

Dissenting members ask APS to put their policy statement on ice due to Climategate

To: Curtis G. Callan, Jr., Princeton University, President of the American Physical Society

6 October 2010

Dear Curt:

When I first joined the American Physical Society sixty-seven years ago it was much smaller, much gentler, and as yet uncorrupted by the money flood (a threat against which Dwight Eisenhower warned a half-century ago). Indeed, the choice of physics as a profession was then a guarantor of a life of poverty and abstinence—it was World War II that changed all that. The prospect of worldly gain drove few physicists. As recently as thirty-five years ago, when I chaired the first APS study of a contentious social/scientific issue, The Reactor Safety Study, though there were zealots aplenty on the outside there was no hint of inordinate pressure on us as physicists. We were therefore able to produce what I believe was and is an honest appraisal of the situation at that time. We were further enabled by the presence of an oversight committee consisting of Pief Panofsky, Vicki Weisskopf, and Hans Bethe, all towering physicists beyond reproach. I was proud of what we did in a charged atmosphere. In the end the oversight committee, in its report to the APS President, noted the complete independence in which we did the job, and predicted that the report would be attacked from both sides. What greater tribute could there be?

How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.

It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave.It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion.I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

So what has the APS, as an organization, done in the face of this challenge?It has accepted the corruption as the norm, and gone along with it. For example:

1. About a year ago a few of us sent an e-mail on the subject to a fraction of the membership. APS ignored the issues, but the then President immediately launched a hostile investigation of where we got the e-mail addresses. In its better days, APS used to encourage discussion of important issues, and indeed the Constitution cites that as its principal purpose. No more. Everything that has been done in the last year has been designed to silence debate

2. The appallingly tendentious APS statement on Climate Change was apparently written in a hurry by a few people over lunch, and is certainly not representative of the talents of APS members as I have long known them. So a few of us petitioned the Council to reconsider it. One of the outstanding marks of (in)distinction in the Statement was the poison word incontrovertible, which describes few items in physics, certainly not this one. In response APS appointed a secret committee that never met, never troubled to speak to any skeptics, yet endorsed the Statement in its entirety. (They did admit that the tone was a bit strong, but amazingly kept the poison word incontrovertible to describe the evidence, a position supported by no one.) In the end, the Council kept the original statement, word for word, but approved a far longer ”explanatory” screed, admitting that there were uncertainties, but brushing them aside to give blanket approval to the original. The original Statement, which still stands as the APS position, also contains what I consider pompous and asinine advice to all world governments, as if the APS were master of the universe. It is not, and I am embarrassed that our leaders seem to think it is. This is not fun and games, these are serious matters involving vast fractions of our national substance, and the reputation of the Society as a scientific society is at stake.

3. In the interim the ClimateGate scandal broke into the news, and the machinations of the principal alarmists were revealed to the world. It was a fraud on a scale I have never seen, and I lack the words to describe its enormity. Effect on the APS position: none. None at all. This is not science; other forces are at work.

4. So a few of us tried to bring science into the act (that is, after all, the alleged and historic purpose of APS), and collected the necessary 200+ signatures to bring to the Council a proposal for a Topical Group on Climate Science, thinking that open discussion of the scientific issues, in the best tradition of physics, would be beneficial to all, and also a contribution to the nation. I might note that it was not easy to collect the signatures, since you denied us the use of the APS membership list. We conformed in every way with the requirements of the APS Constitution, and described in great detail what we had in mind—simply to bring the subject into the open.

5. To our amazement, Constitution be damned, you declined to accept our petition, but instead used your own control of the mailing list to run a poll on the members’ interest in a TG on Climate and the Environment. You did ask the members if they would sign a petition to form a TG on your yet-to-be-defined subject, but provided no petition, and got lots of affirmative responses. (If you had asked about sex you would have gotten more expressions of interest.) There was of course no such petition or proposal, and you have now dropped the Environment part, so the whole matter is moot. (Any lawyer will tell you that you cannot collect signatures on a vague petition, and then fill in whatever you like.) The entire purpose of this exercise was to avoid your constitutional responsibility to take our petition to the Council.

6. As of now you have formed still another secret and stacked committee to organize your own TG, simply ignoring our lawful petition.

APS management has gamed the problem from the beginning, to suppress serious conversation about the merits of the climate change claims. Do you wonder that I have lost confidence in the organization?

I do feel the need to add one note, and this is conjecture, since it is always risky to discuss other people’s motives. This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club.Your own Physics Department (of which you are chairman) would lose millions a year if the global warming bubble burst. When Penn State absolved Mike Mann of wrongdoing, and the University of East Anglia did the same for Phil Jones, they cannot have been unaware of the financial penalty for doing otherwise. As the old saying goes, you don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. Since I am no philosopher, I’m not going to explore at just which point enlightened self-interest crosses the line into corruption, but a careful reading of the ClimateGate releases makes it clear that this is not an academic question.

I want no part of it, so please accept my resignation. APS no longer represents me, but I hope we are still friends.